How a Manual MINI and Charlie Cooper Took on the 2023 Nurburgring 24 Hours

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MINI at the Nürburgring 2023: A Manual Gearbox, a Podium Finish, and a Story Worth Telling

This weekend MINI heads back to the Nurburgring to tackle the famous 24 Hour race. So this week we’re looking back and we’re starting with the 2023 race – when MINI did something a bit crazy.

When MINI rolled onto the grid of the 2023 Nürburgring 24 Hours with the JCW 1to6 Edition, the odds weren’t exactly in its favor. It was the only car in the race with a manual gearbox—a rare anomaly in a field dominated by paddle-shifted precision. It wasn’t the fastest. It wasn’t the most advanced. But by the end of 24 grueling hours, it was one of the most talked-about cars in the entire event.

I asked Charlie Cooper about the experience during while we were at the track shortly after the race.

Piloted by Bulldog Racing and dressed in striking stealth-black livery, the JCW 1to6 was a near-stock MINI built to celebrate the purity of driving. No dual-clutch trickery, no turbo-boosted telemetry warfare—just 231 horsepower, a six-speed stick, and a chassis honed by history. And in the hands of a team that included Sebastian Sauerbrei, Michael Mönch, Christoph Kragenings, and Charlie Cooper—the grandson of John Cooper himself—it clawed its way to an astounding second place in the VT2 class.

It wasn’t a clean race. After charging through the night with lap times in the low 10-minute range, the car suffered a blown fuel line shortly after midnight. What could have been a terminal setback became instead a defining moment of grit: the team executed quick repairs, returned to the fight, and gradually reeled their way back into podium contention.

Charlie Cooper’s presence wasn’t just symbolic—it was kinetic. His pace was sharp, his stints clean, and his connection to the family legacy tangible. We sat down with him post-race to talk about what it meant to carry the Cooper name back to the Nordschleife and how it felt to help pilot a manual MINI to one of the standout performances of the entire event.

MINI’s 2023 Nürburgring campaign wasn’t about setting records—it was about making a statement. In an age of increasingly homogenized performance cars, the 1to6 Edition stood out because it dared to be MINI. It reminded us that raw, analog driving joy still has a place in endurance racing—and that the MINI spirit, decades after Monte Carlo, is still alive and gunning.

The same can be said for MINI’s latest 2025 JCW race car set to tackle the ‘Ring this weekend. No, it’s not a manual anymore, but the spirit of a production-based MINI hatch tackling the toughest race in the world is still alive and well.

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